Product Manager at CrossBoundary Energy (CBE)

CrossBoundary Energy (CBE) is the leading provider of clean, renewable, reliable, and affordable electricity directly to African businesses. According to World Bank data, access to reliable and affordable electricity is the most significant constraint on economic growth on the continent. CBE addresses this challenge by providing African corporates with fully financed renewable power. Through this approach, we are building a disruptive, distributed, renewable utility that can unlock sustainable growth in Africa. 

We are already making rapid progress towards our vision. CBE is currently delivering a portfolio of over $200M of solar, wind, and storage projects for businesses across Africa. Our clients include Actis, Diageo, Heineken, Rio Tinto, Syrah Resources, Unilever, and other leading regional companies.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Product Manager

Location: Lagos
Employment Type: Part Time, Full time

Job Description  

• We are recruiting a full-time Product Manager to lead the technical development of innovative data products that will enhance our operational excellence. Through design of our data architecture, this person will also lay the foundation for CBE to serve our commercial electricity customers with data insights.
• As CBE’s first Product Manager, you will be responsible for planning, designing, and overseeing implementation of the data solutions CBE's team needs to deliver clean power plants on time and on budget.
• You will interface with our business development, project delivery, and investment teams to understand our business users’ expectations, then translate these criteria into technical specifications for external software development partners you manage.
• The Product Manager will also have a strong understanding of data architecture and how it impacts product design and functionality.
• This person will analyze complex systems, evaluate existing enterprise software products, and then guide design of information solutions that are scalable, reliable, and secure. The Product Manager will join CBE's Operations team, which reports to the COO. 

Who You Are 

• Excellence: You hold yourself to high standards and lead by example. You overdeliver on all tasks - big or small - necessary to contribute toward the team objective 
• Curiosity: Not satisfied with "not possible;" imagines ways to apply new data innovations including Internet of Things (IoT), extended reality (XR), blockchain, and machine learning to business goals.
• Acts Like an Owner: A systematic and highly organized project manager; takes personal accountability for managing teams and exceeding user expectations. Your proficiency in various programming languages such as Python, Java, C#, or .NET helps you provide actionable guidance to engineers when they encounter obstacles 
• Deliberate Thinker: A pragmatic decision-maker known for deducing the simple, robust solution where more complicated approaches would deliver the same results. Communicates persuasively with developers, business users, and executives.
• Bias to Action: Self-starter who is passionate about creating lasting change in Africa. You are comfortable with ambiguity and effective in a fast-moving and complex environment. Translates ideas into roadmaps recommending how we can rapidly incorporate pioneering technologies into our daily work 
• Prioritizes Results: Demonstrated track record of managing diverse stakeholders and workstreams to drive to successful conclusion.
• Familiarity with the architecture of cloud applications in the Microsoft technology stack, including Dynamics ERP (CRM, Fabric, Finance and Operations, Project for the Web).

Primary Responsibilities 

• Collaborate with sector experts within each of CBE's functional departments - business development, project delivery, investment, ESG, regulatory - to identify user pain points.
• Understand user requirements and provide technical guidance, such as feasibility analysis, architecture reviews, and prototyping to CBE Operations team as part of prioritizing the product roadmap.
• Evaluate and recommend appropriate technologies for each project, such as programming languages, frameworks, libraries, testing tools, and deployment methods, providing engineers with actionable guidance on how to implement user stories.
• Negotiate on CBE's behalf to contract software development partners. Manage constructive conflict where necessary in a calm, curious, and solutions-oriented manner to advance CBE's business interests.
• Monitor architecture design and product development workstreams to ensure solutions are scalable, secure, and cost-effective.
• Design metrics to monitor performance, availability, and reliability issues of CBE's products using logging tools, metrics dashboards, or alert systems 
• Identify information management trends that offer opportunities or risks to CBE's business. Continuously assess and update product roadmap to take advantage of new technologies.
• Collaborate with CrossBoundary IT Manager to ensure compliance with relevant standards, policies, and regulations, such as security protocols and data privacy laws.
• Document and communicate systems architecture and product design decisions to users and CBE's Leadership team, using diagrams and reports 
• Develop new checklists, procedures, tools, procedures, and templates to better capture and organize knowledge on CBE’s product and systems design 
• Train CBE teams on new, efficient ways of working to take advantage of new products.

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 5+ years experience working in software development, cloud computing, or IT consulting designing, developing, and implementing complex software solutions 
• A proven track record of delivering successful products from ideation to launch and beyond.
• Working familiarity with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform services and architectures.
• Strong interest in Microsoft stack enterprise solutions.
• Fluency in the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Teams, Sharepoint).
• Motivation to work in the renewable energy industry, particularly the distributed generation / off-grid sector.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.